Hercule Poirot's Christmas

A Hercule Poirot Mystery

The holidays can be murder--and just in time for yuletide 2008 comes this holiday edition of one of Agatha Christie's most popular and confounding mysteries.

The wealthy Simeon Lee has demanded that all four of his sons--one faithful, one prodigal, one impecunious, one sensitive--and their wives return home for Christmas. But a heartwarming family holiday is not exactly what he has in mind. He bedevils each of his sons with barbed insults and finally announces that he is cutting off their allowances and changing his will. So when the old man is found lying in a pool of blood on Christmas Eve, there is no lack of suspects. Did Lee's taunts push one of the boys to a desperate act? And how did the murderer escape from the locked room? Intrepid Belgian detective Hercule Poirot suspends his own holiday festivities to sift through the motives and evidence surrounding the crime.

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Ingenious! The first time I read this mystery I was completely blindsided by the killer's identity. I recently read it for the second time and saw that, as usual, the clues had been there all along, I had simply overlooked them . . . This one goes in the category of Christie mysteries that are my favorites because I was so shocked by the ending, along with "4:50 from Paddington" and "The Murder on the Links". It's also a really interesting story.

"Hercule Poirot's Christmas" is a fairly interesting mystery with some clever twists and a good plot. However, Poirot lacks the humour and great lines that he had in prior stories, and the story ends too suddenly. Still, the reveal of the killer was surprising and the book is overall decent.

I've read quite a few Agatha Christie's, and I find that sometimes they can be very slow, particularly at the beginning. This one, however, was interesting right from the very first chapter, and kept me interested until the very last chapter! I couldn't put it down.